Don’t advise home quarantine even for asymptomatic, GCC tells hosps

In a move to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has instructed the hospitals not to prescribe home quarantine to asymptomatic patients. With the new instruction, there will be no home quarantine option for COVID patients.

“All zonal officers of the civic body have sent circulars to private hospitals in their respective zones and issued a warning. The circulars were based on an instruction given by Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi,” a sanitary inspector said.

The circular states that all COVID-19 patients should be hospitalised up to the quarantine period of 14 days to prevent further spread. Hospital managements have also been directed to instruct their medical officers to not issue home quarantine certificates to the patients.

“Any dereliction will lead to legal action against your institution (hospital), as per section 51 of Disaster Management Act 2005,” the circular said. The sanitary inspector added that government hospitals have also been told not to prescribe home quarantine and keep the patients for 14 days. “This will slow down the pace of the spread. When the cases were higher during the first wave, home quarantine for asymptomatic patients was introduced to free up hospital beds for critical patients,” the sanitary inspector said.